MrCynical

Joined: 12th June 2009

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MrCynical
Must...resist...FBA

Comment by MrCynical posted on Sigma EM140DG Ringflash - SPECIAL OFFER! at 04/05/2010 - 20:37

MrCynical
If I'm using the camera, split about 80-20 between selected point and centre point. If I've handed it to someone else, I set it to centre point since that's easiest for compact users.

Comment by MrCynical posted on How do you focus? at 04/05/2010 - 20:33

MrCynical
polchraine wrote:
My suggestion was:

K7, Pentax 16-50, Pentax 50-135 and Sigma 150-500 plus a Pentax 360 flash.

or K7, Pentax 16-50, Pentax 60-250 and the Sigma 150-500 and the flash

Then maybe an ultra wide angle too.


What comments do any of you have on the possibilities? What would you suggest and what overall cost?
My first comment on both of those would be to replace the Pentax 360 with a Metz 48 - it's both cheaper and more powerful [EDIT: Stefan beat me to it!]. However the suggestions above from John and Oggy are sound: better to get a twin kit (for the tele you have the choice of the WR of the 50-200 or the extra reach of the 55-300) and then add new lenses as needed than buy a crate of stuff for specialisms (e.g. wildlife at 500mm) he might not actually have any interest in.

So I'd suggest, at most:

K7 Twin Lens Kit (18-55 WR and 50-200 WR) - £919
Metz 48 AF1 - £150
Sandisk Extreme III 4Gb SDHC card - £14.99
Camera bag (Crumpler New Delhi 510?) - £109.99
Redsnapper RS-284 tripod with 3-way head - £69.95

Silkypix Developer Studio Pro - £159.00 [alternatively Adobe Lightroom, which I use. About the same price but wait for version 3 which is imminent]

This includes everything (except a computer obviously!) that your friend needs to get started in the DSLR world, and comes to £1422.93. That leaves a very substantial sum for adding nice lenses according to how his interests develop.

Comment by MrCynical posted on Suggestions ... at 04/05/2010 - 20:29

MrCynical
I have both the 50 and 100 macro lenses, and even though my macro centres on plants rather than insects I still greatly prefer the latter due to working distance. The 50 is great for indoor closeups, but if I could only have one for traditional outdoor macro I would have that. There are numerous alternatives to the DFA 100:
*The Tamron 90mm (~£350 new) and Sigma 105mm (~£380 new) are both extremely good lenses, comparable in image quality to the Pentax (it really is a tossup, I have the DFA100 because Park had them on offer at £270 a while ago!)
*Various old Pentax (e.g. 100mm f4) and third party (Vivitar-Tokina 90mm, Tamron 90mm) lenses. Bear in mind that some of the good ones can be upwards of £100 used - though obviously that is still about a third of the price of the new AF lenses

Comment by MrCynical posted on Macro lens advise at 03/05/2010 - 22:12

MrCynical
Greytop wrote:
The trick is to shoot RAW and just expose to the right of the histogram.
My K20D can produce very good ISO1600 shots using this principle. It had nothing to do with me accidentally having the camera set at ISO1600 in screaming summer sunlight

Comment by MrCynical posted on rumor of Pentax K5 ??? at 03/05/2010 - 01:14

MrCynical
matwhittington wrote:
Without the upgrade the lenses are effectively manual focus I think as they don't have an alternate screw-type drive. After the firmware upgrade they work just fine
Some of the earlier DA* lenses (such as the infamous 16-50 and 50-135) do indeed have a backup screw drive slot. In fact there have been petition demands for a firmware upgrade to enable screw-drive on these as an option on SDM-capable bodies (for if/when the SDM fails). So while not upgrading closes off SDM-only DA* lenses (e.g. the DA*55 IIRC), it also preserves important functionality in others (ie the confidence that your £900 zoom will not suddenly become a £900 manual focus zoom).

Comment by MrCynical posted on Pentax K10D firmware at 03/05/2010 - 01:12

MrCynical
Hmm, my slight inherent paranoia (and love for all things shiny) is pushing me towards Cokin Z-Pro size filters (Hitech 100mms to be precise)... damned shiny things

Comment by MrCynical posted on Ultrawides and grad filters at 03/05/2010 - 01:09

MrCynical
It shows as invalid in Firefox 3.6.3 (on Vista): the certificate expired on the 29th of April (Mozilla helpfully trust their users with this, whereas IE has steadfastly refused to reveal the reason for the invalidity )

Comment by MrCynical posted on SRS site certificate at 03/05/2010 - 01:08

MrCynical
The other point is that fisheyes designed for 35mm (ie all of them except the Pentax DA 10-17) will not give quite as dramatic a 'fisheye effect' since only the center, less distorted, part of the image circle is captured by APS-C DSLRs.

Comment by MrCynical posted on wide angle lens advice required at 03/05/2010 - 01:02

MrCynical
It is a good price, but this is the same place which simultaneously lists the 16-45 for £299.99 AND £379.99 (not kidding, there are two listings). Where did I put my barge pole?

Comment by MrCynical posted on Pentax 50mm Macro - £380 at 03/05/2010 - 00:48

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